Granite outcrops in the schoolyard.
When you turned, maple and blue cedar,
an unkempt incline, fence, forest, a blur
of highway beyond the access road. Puddles
oozed in a downpour, mud flats
of the micro imagination. You could dig
canal rivulets with a stick you found.
Someone found the picture of a woman
on a matchbook we passed around,
boys and girls, awed by a new word, bodice.
Beyond hopscotch chalked-out boxes,
gravel started, then a diamond
where rules were schooled on strikes
and fouls. Mostly you ran. You climbed
metal bars planted in packed sand. Dennis
fell, and screamed. He got three
stitches on his chin. We were never told
that math won’t end, or, like dreams, each face
we knew would soften and vanish. Instead,
we flipped quarters at the wall, and whoever
landed theirs closest kept them all.
